THE TILTED ROOM

1 in 4 people will be affected by mental illness. That’s a statistic that we hear thrown about a lot. We’re all just part of another statistic that no one really pays much attention to. Yet when you think about it, reeeaaally think about it, it’s amazing just how many people will become affected by one of the least treated illnesses in the world.

Next time you’re in a group of people, look around and pick out 4 in your head at random. Based on the statistic, one of these people is, or will be, in some way affected by mental health (obviously you’re not Derren Brown reading minds, it’s just an exercise).

So what does this tell us? Well mental illness is more common than people would care to think about. In one way or another, mental illness is affecting someone we love in some way, and more often…

Since my anxiety diagnosis, I’ve often felt a sense of grief for the person I once was. A confident, bright, optimistic guy with a good group of friends, very likeable and really approachable. He was cool. Quite a popular person who seemed to know everyone, go so many places and be prepared to face anything.

Anxiety, however, didn’t seem to like him, and over the space of around 12 months would chip away at him, making him crumble into a dust, and disappear with the wind. This made me sad. I had lost someone, I’d become reclusive, quiet, lost friends, I was irritable, unsociable and a shadow of the lad who no longer existed.

One new year I decided ‘that’s it, I’m going to get the old me back’. I sought therapy, I pushed myself so hard and powered through all of my fears over the space of 4 years…